Beauty

Is Rowing The New Spinning? Short Answer: YES

Can you imagine anything worse than getting out of bed at the crack of dawn to hop on a bike at a pre-work spin class and all in -2 temperatures? Well, we can't.

Never fear! We've found 2016's workout du jour designed to get you lean and mean without having to hop on a bike and fall off the fitness wagon. Enter indoor rowing. Yup, it's a thing.

Taking New York by storm (where all the coolest fitness trends are born – see barrecore), indoor rowing is the exercise class to get your gymwear on for.

Once purely the domain of Steve Redgrave fans and Oxbridge students, rowing machines have had a 2016 overhaul to become super cool. Who knew?

A photo posted by CITYROW (@cityrow) on

Dec 10, 2015 at 6:07pm PST

Taking inspiration from NYC's hippest rowing class, CityRow (who have nearly 5000 followers on Instagram and can be added to a Class Pass), UK rowing clubs are slowly taking up the fitness trend for themselves.

So what's so good about it anyway? It's a hardcore, full body workout that burns serious calories without being heavy impact. And you get to sit down, obvs.

Well for some of the workout at least. The rest involves jumping off the rower to lift weights and do some planks, push ups and burps. Jeez.

For the less active at heart, CityRow has a signature 'Row & Flow' class that combines interval rowing with more calming vinyasa yoga. Lets hope the UK catches on to that one.

In the meantime you can always invest in your own rowing machine, formulate your own indoor rowing interval training at your local gym and keep your eyes peeled for rowing classes inevitably appearing all over the place. Our top tip? Start talking about it now to your hippest fitness friends and you'll look way ahead of the game. Genius!